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6000 year old 'Halls Of The Dead' found, UK


seeder

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'Halls Of The Dead' Unearthed In England Said To Be 6,000-Year-Old Burial Mounds

(with a vid)

Archaeologists have unearthed two nearly 6,000-year-old burial mounds and the remains of two massive buildings in England.

The two wooden long-buildings, or halls, were burnt to the ground; the ashes were then shoveled in to make burial mounds.

"The buildings seemed to have been deliberately burned down," said Julian Thomas, the archaeologist leading the excavation and a professor at the University of Manchester.

Researchers believe these halls of the living may have been transformed into "halls of the dead" after a leader or important social figure died.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/31/halls-of-the-dead-unearthed-england-burial-mounds_n_3681779.html

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very cool

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I'd always been led to believe that dwellings/buildings in the British Isles at this time ~4,000 BC were little more than huts like the below picture...

Crannog_-_geograph_org_uk_-_35551.jpg

These buildings seem much larger than I would have expected...

Great article!

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I'd always been led to believe that dwellings/buildings in the British Isles at this time ~4,000 BC were little more than huts like the below picture...

Crannog_-_geograph_org_uk_-_35551.jpg

These buildings seem much larger than I would have expected...

Great article!

They still look like that today in some places. (lol)

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I'd always been led to believe that dwellings/buildings in the British Isles at this time ~4,000 BC were little more than huts like the below picture...

Crannog_-_geograph_org_uk_-_35551.jpg

.

what you have there Taun, is an iron-age roundhouse, in use from between 400bc-400ad.

there is a reconstruction of an iron-age settlement at Butser Farm, i'll post a link, and the roundhouses were a lot bigger than you'd imagine, with some truly impressive interiors!

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Thank you, Taun, Seeder and Shrooma. These sorts of things are really fascinating, aren't they? Love the pictures.

Edited by moonshadow60
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.

what you have there Taun, is an iron-age roundhouse, in use from between 400bc-400ad.

there is a reconstruction of an iron-age settlement at Butser Farm, i'll post a link, and the roundhouses were a lot bigger than you'd imagine, with some truly impressive interiors!

I did know that - I was using it as an example of what I always imagined even earlier housing would look like... The buildings at the OP site appear to be rectangular (long-houses) and most of what i'd

seen of early iron age houses in the BI were either stone "igloo" types particularly on the Western side of Ireland or like the photo I posted...

I use to have a series of photos of a reconstruction Ironage settlement from my first trip to Ireland - but alas that was many years and many moves ago...

This photo is more what I was thinking actually... i took it at the Newgrange Info center in Ireland... It is of a diorama of a pre-Iron age settlement at the site...

(It's a bit out of focus - sorry)...

IMG_0780_zps5a4028eb.jpg

Edited by Taun
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The buildings at the OP site appear to be rectangular (long-houses) and most of what i'd

seen of early iron age houses in the BI were either stone "igloo" types particularly on the Western side of Ireland or like the photo I posted...

.

the longhouses tended to be more what you'd call 'funerary structures Taun, but as wood doesn't lend itself to preservation very well, the sites on which they were built eventually became 'long barrows' of the kind found at West Kennet or Cranborne Chase, with the original structure either being burned or dismantled before construction of a more substantial stone & earth structure.

the roundhouses were indeed dwellings, something that didn't change in britain until the arrival of the Romans with their new-fangled rectangles!

.

This photo is more what I was thinking actually... i took it at the Newgrange Info center in Ireland... It is of a diorama of a pre-Iron age settlement at the site...

(It's a bit out of focus - sorry)...

IMG_0780_zps5a4028eb.jpg

.

(this 2nd part of your post didn't show up until i quoted it Taun, and i'm hoping that it'll show up on re-posting, as i'd very much like to see the photo!

:-)

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They may have burnt the houses down due to diseased people dying in them.

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That's odd... The second photo looks fine to me - and I loaded it the same way as the first one... Hmmm... Let me check this out for a bit...

Photobucket has changed the way it works... Now when you click on an embedded photo it takes you to Photobucket - which is annoying...

Does this look any better?

IMG_0780_zps5a4028eb.jpg

Edited by Taun
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much better Taun, thanks!

it is indeed a great picture, almost identical to the Butser Farm settlement, and shows what a good job they did with their recreation.

makes me wish i had a TARDIS.....

*wistful sigh*

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I would absolutely love a time machine - even if it only looks into the past, not travel into it physically...

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From OP Link:

The site drew people for generations. Long after the long halls were burned, people added a series of stone burial chambers to the grounds, Thomas said. The site also contains a flint axe and flint knife that were placed there up to 1,000 years after the hall was first erected.

Looks like it could have been a site of ancestor worship. Maybe someone who was the start of a line of kings or something.

The site almost looks Germanic, or Scandinavian. They used log halls like that, but 2000 years later.

Edited by DieChecker
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Can you describe it please?

Elevated "house" above waters. From wood. Cone roof. With wooden bridge to land.

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